Monday, November 29, 2010

Gingerbread Houses

We had so much fun with the family this Thanksgiving. We were all together except for Kyle and his family (we missed you guys!!!). We enjoyed getting to know our new brother in law Chris, meeting Raquel's boyfriend Sam and just having fun together. Oh and eating...there was a lot of that!

Here are pictures from our Annual Gingerbread House Party. This is our third year doing it is only getting bigger and better as the years go by. This year we let Aliyah take over the design and decorating of the house. It was all we could do to get a roof on the house. But she had so much fun--probably because she kept sneaking candy all night.


Raquel and Sam










Monday, November 8, 2010

Halloween

Carving the Pumpkin:




Aliyah as Belle (from Beauty and the Beast):





Spencer as Superman:






Halloween weekend was busy for us with many events and parties. The kids dressed up in their costumes three times in two days. Even with all the dressing up I wasn't able to get a picture of the two of them together. :( We did trunk or treat with our ward which was fun. After last year's Halloween scares, I wasn't sure how Aliyah would do this year--she did ok. She didn't like some of the scarier masks and costumes but she wasn't totally freaked out. Spencer, being just one, really had no clue about what was going on, but he sure looked cute in his costume with his hair parted and gelled.

Trip to Utah and Aliyah's 4th Birthday

We went to Utah in September. We stayed with Bill's sister Lisa and just enjoyed visiting with family and friends. We had such a great and relaxing time and the kids did pretty well with the traveling and being away from home.

We celebrated Aliyah's 4th birthday while we were there. She was so excited to have lots of her cousins there to celebrate with her. She got a lot of fun things-- most of which were related in someway to princesses. She even had a new bike waiting for her at home in Phoenix.

We also got to go to a BYU game. We had such a great time, especially since we didn't bring the kids and BYU actually won!

We visited BYU campus a few times and made a trip to the creamery for some yummy ice cream.

It was so fun seeing our family and friends that we don't see very often.





We


Friday, October 1, 2010

Aliyah's First Day of Preschool



Aliyah started real preschool at the end of August. She loves it. She goes Monday through Thursday from noon to 3pm. It is a nice break for me to have almost everyday, and its good for her to have activities and playtime with other kids. She is learning a lot and most of all keeping her active and energetic self busy. Currently the teacher lives about 20 minutes away, but soon is moving to about 5-10 minutes away...that will be so nice not to have to drive so much (luckily we carpool with two other families).

Amber's Wedding



But of course she had to have a little attitude and hide from the camera, but it shows off her ringlets.



Spencer looked like such a handsome little man in his white shirt, black dress pants and tie





Me and my Grandma:

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Trip to CA





We went to CA for Bill's high school reunion. He drove out with us, but had to get back to work on Monday and flew home. I stayed in CA with the kids for my family's reunion at the beach. It was fun, but it was a lot of work trying to keep the kids happy and safe while at the beach, by myself. Aliyah had tons of fun playing with her cousin Minnette and my cousins kids.

A few pictures from July

Spencer helping daddy put on some child locks


Aliyah loves having curly hair


And she loves doing silly poses for the camera


She was so excited about the tower she built that was taller than her


Spencer loved crawling around


Bill's parents came and visited for a few days--the kids loved it!


Bill's birthday was July 14th--Happy 28th!


Running in the gutter on a rainy day-one of the good things about Phoenix is that the summer rains are warm and so are perfect to go and play in